Music – Make Jazz Not War!

Moral Decay: I learned everything I know from Tricky Dick “I am not a crook” Nixon

June 20, 2023June 20, 2023

Michael Vander Does

I have often said that when Ford pardoned Nixon, he set the stage for the corruption, criminality, and seditious behavior of the Republican Party AND the resurgence of fascism in America. He’d probably be sad. Betty’d probably say, “I told you so.” This piece is our take on Republican privilege and impunity. The lack of accountability emboldens them. They’ve been plotting their coup for 50 years. I worry about our future enough already. If Trump faces no consequences, I think democracy is doomed. Of course, the Republican Ohio Legislature is trying to do that anyway. This is another of our......

I Am Not Your Ally

June 19, 2023June 20, 2023

Michael Vander Does

Without our comrade, Greg Ward, it’s been hard to get our new music out. This is from a recent rehearsal. Our take on intersectionality. It will open our Comfest show at 4:15 pm, Sunday, June 25. I Am Not Your Ally I am the one whose back matches yours, swords in hand, my rear view blindness trusting your eyes and hands at my back. I am not your ally. I am the one whose arms link with your arms and the arms of others. I am not your ally. I am not a person of color I am not a......

Memorial Jam @ Vanderelli Room

March 31, 2023March 31, 2023

Michael Vander Does

Come help Make Jazz Not War! celebrate these affiliated Citizen Artists who joined the ancestors since the beginning of the pandemic. There will be a drum circle. We will call the ancestors and they will send us music. There will be times when musicians from related groups (Too Far North, Nova Madrugada, Richard Lopez Trio,...

Ukraine: Song for the Refugees

April 11, 2022April 11, 2022

Michael Vander Does

My grandpa Ruby and Grandma Molly were both Ukrainian Jews. Ukraine was part of Imperial Russia then, so they were also Russian Jews. Molly’s family was from the Odesa area. Ruby’s family was from near the Polish border. Russian Jews had no rights. They couldn’t live anywhere except in the Pale of Jewish Settlement and they couldn’t own property. Employment and education were severely restricted. They had to be back in the shtetl (Jewish settlement) by sundown. And then there were the massacres and lynchings and rapes (pogroms). These were the Jew laws of Russia. Unsurprisingly, people ran. Became refugees.......